Day 143

Round to M's in the evening to watch The Naked Lunch. Came back and backed-up QuickC (11 discs!)

Day 142

Discovered that Quick C would probably work on my PC. M gave me a lift with it round to hers, and we transferred Quick C onto it via a serial cable. And it did work too.

Day 141

Round to my parents' in the evening, mowed the lawn for them.

Day 140

M rang to tell me about Alien 3 and to ask about that environmental health job. In the afternoon went to the Workshop to fill in a time sheet.

M came round about 4.30 to talk optimistically about that job.

Day 139

Investigated dBase files with the help of that DNews magazine I got free from the PCW Show about 8 years ago - funny how it should come in handy now.

Day 138

Worked out what the problem with my camera had been in Wales - end of the film!

Day 137

Went to the Workshop, stayed for about 10 minutes, just to show my face.

Round to M's in the evening. She went on about some 1.3" hard disc (20MB) that uses screws too small to be seen with the naked eye.

Day 136

Only 4 months to Christmas btw: if I save £5/ftnt I'll have £40 by then, and remember I did pretty well on £10 last year.

Day 135

Round to my parents' house for Dad's birthday.

In the evening out with M and J, met a real live 100% genuine Australian bloke.

Day 134

Went to the Workshop. Hung about for about 40 minutes talking to the people from Wednesday - as both computers were in use there wasn't much point staying, so I left.

Nevertheless all this Workshop stuff's been pretty encouraging. Nice to have something to do, somewhere to go for a change.

Day 133

In the afternoon made Access debt payment at the bank - 12 to go. Then to the Workshop - got a good grounding on SuperCalc, and soaked getting there. When I got back, wrote a 3D graph program for Basic (inspired by SuperCalc).

Have resolved to save £5/fortnight out of the extra money.

Day 132

Cashed my Giro, went to the Workshop. I was interviewed quickly by Denise the deputy manager. She reminded me of my first junior school teacher: she admired my qualifications and held out hopes of computer experience. She kept shaking all the time for some reason.

Got to go there again tomorrow, as I'm supposed to do 30½ hours/week, though Denise told me I could use my imagination filling in the time-sheet.

Remembered today that it's 4 years since I got my A-level results.

Day 131

Got to be up at 9 am tomorrow. Hope it goes OK and produces something.

Day 130

Into town to sign on, walked to the Employment Training place. Got to go back on Wednesday. Looks like I'll get paid the extra £10 pw as of now, which can't be bad. Might be a problem with lack of respect where I'm placed, still, it's self-respect that makes 60% of the running. ET lasts till February, so I might have a chance of finding a job by then.

Day 129

Had a good breakfast of boiled eggs which set me up for lots of cleaning and tidying up.

Day 128

Cycled into town with M. Then it transpired that she didn't have the key to one of the locks she'd put on our bikes, so I had to wait 1½ hours while she walked home, looked for the key, and cycled back on another bike. Whetted my appetite with peanuts.

Day 127

Rang somewhere M had mentioned called the Workshop, it's some scheme where they pay you £10+benefits. Agreed to go along next week and see what's what.

Day 126

It rained solidly today from noon to about 11 pm. Not very inspiring.

Day 125

Three months since I heard from anyone I was at uni with.

Day 124

S came round and had a go at me for not applying for that job Theresa McCarthy was going on about. I told her that when I'd phoned up about it, they said there was no job, and they didn't know who Theresa was either. Somehow to S though it was still my fault.

Day 123

M showed me a map of where we rescued those people yesterday. I climbed up 150-200ft on that scree! And I'd already walked to the summit that day. A fantastic confidence-builder.

Day 122

Climbed Snowdon today, on way down rescued a party of Scousers from a ridge. Home about 11.15pm.

Day 121

Went to Wales with M and S. Did some practice climbing and abseiling on this rock face called Little Tryfan. Bed in a tent at 11pm.

Day 120

The bastards are making Income Support even harder to claim! Who else would make such a fuss over £34 a week? Fucking Tory bastards, that's who.

Day 119

Watched Me, You & Him - improving. Shows promise.

Day 118

More tragic events in Yugoslavia. Bloody Germans. Thatcher reckons we should send arms to use against the Serbs - stupid cow. If you boiled her down you could produce the essence of pure evil (not sure why you'd want it though). I'll be glad when she's dead.

Day 117

C came round. We went into town to get our parents a silver wedding anniversary present (silver tray).

Day 116

S invited me to come to Dulchester. She wanted to have the suspension recharged on her car but it was too knackered.

Day 115

Watched TV Squash - utter crap, really just an anti-BBC vehicle.

Day 114

Got some cans. £1.30 still left out of the Weekend Fund afterwards. Where's July gone? Seemed to last about 10 days.